Vitus bering biography summary examples

(1681–1741), Russian explorer of Danish descent.

Vitus Bering was the captain-commander of two expeditions exploring the relative positions of the coasts of Siberia and North America.

Bringing back the valuable sea otter and other pelts from the islands of the North Pacific to Siberia, the second of these expeditions sparked the fur rush that resulted in the Russian conquest of the Commander and Aleutian Islands and, eventually, all of Alaska, which was claimed by the Russian Empire until it was sold to the United States in 1867.

On the first expedition, which sailed in 1728 from the coast of Kamchatka northward well into the Arctic Ocean, passed through what is now known as the Bering Strait, and discovered St.

Lawrence Island and the Diomede Islands, Bering did not sight the coast of North America; but he was convinced that Asia and North America were not joined by land. However, when Bering arrived in St. Petersburg, his critics at the Admiralty